Money for Genius Composers Only ?

College Majors Music Major
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<p>Hi!
I'm 28 years old and I have finished my 4 year B.mus degree in composition and conducting at Tel aviv's university "Academy of music" Israel with 85%
(out of 100%) grade. Before that, I had finished piano school (7 years program) in Russia with red diploma. I have sound/recording/mixing/musical gear/computer music knowledge, I play guitar, piano, I sing (sang in an academy chorus as tenor/baritone) and write in different styles including tonal, classical, romantic, modern, post-modern, contemporary, experimental, electronic and music for media. I've been composing and arranging music for Israel media professionally for last 5 years. I have a few classical romantic and post-modern works recorded from live concerts and other pieces I've done in computer format with a full score.<br>
I would like to get MA/MM and/or PHD/DMA composition degrees in USA music school and try making a career there. The only problem is money, of course. I have something like 7,000-10,000$ savings and this is all I got for tuition and living costs. I know that there are universities like Yale, UChicago, Princeton, Stanford, Harvard where u get a full tuition remission and a yearly stipend (about 20k). I've contacted all of these universities.. they claim that if u're accepted u get all of these automatically.. the only problem is to be accepted - only 3 out of 150 composition applicants get in per year.
My question is.. Do they accept geniuses only or the "normal" international student like me could have a chance to be accepted with full tuition remission+stipend? Why those ratios (3:150) are so low ? Indeed, only geniuses get a good school with a good money support ? I have not participated in any composition contests, I haven't won any awards, I don't have any personal connections with USA professors, my music is not genius [yet :) ..and if I were genius and knew all, why would I study in any school..] but I think I have my own voice already, I want to compose and I want to study in USA school. Is it enough..? </p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

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<p>Anyone with interesting experience…?</p>

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<p>I am sorry, but I have no experience whatsoever. However, I do know that schools of composition and the challenges of getting admitted to them is being actively discussed in a couple of other threads at the moment.</p>

<p>As far as why so few get sufficient awards to be able to study without worrying overmuch about money, that is a much longer reply, and somewhat out of scope for this board. The short answer is “that’s just the way it is here.” Schools here in the States do not automatically get any kind of direct government support. State-sponsored schools get some funding from their respective states, but the funding falls far short of the universities’ wish lists and is getting cut further. There is no direct federal (national) fundage that I am aware of. Even schools who get some government funding need to have private endowments, and those have taken big hits in the current economic climate.</p>

<p>So, you find yourself in competition with a lot of people for very limited funds for very few very expensive slots. So does that equate to only genius composers getting full rides? I guess that depends on what “genius” means, but if you have three slots and 150 people vying for them, you can be very picky indeed.</p>

<p>I do think that there’s some room to explore what each department is looking for. Some schools may be looking for the next Glass or Part, where another may be looking to provide great film composers, or others who can compose on demand in a variety of styles. Video games are becoming another huge consumer of composed music, and it is not all pure schlock compared to the days of yore - I think World of Warcraft is one example.</p>

<p>So I recommend looking at programs that reflect your interests, rather than purely “name” schools.</p>

<p>Anyone else wanna chime in here? I am not a composer, nor the mother of one, so I am totally out of my league here.</p>

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<p>You might apply for outside funding - in the US there are Fulbrights, Mellons, and other fellowships; I imagine there are similar possibilities for Israeli citizens. There are many many graduate programs in the US that offer composition degrees, so don’t limit yourself to the most selective and you may find a program with some funding.</p>

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<p>There was an Italian comp student (at the BM, not MM level) by the user name of aLfR3dd who ended up at Hartt. Might be worth pming or emailing him to compare notes. My son also worked with an amazing Turkish comp BM candidate also there during his tenure. I don’t know their circumstances or financial packages, and funding for MM/Phd is a different ballgame, but you might want to look at some other options beyond what you’ve stated.</p>

<p>Son also had a Hartt BM comp classmate who just finished up his MM in comp at Yale. Nice gig if you can get it, but you have to be at the top of the heap. Is it genius? I don’t have an answer, but you don’t know unless you try. On the same token, putting all your eggs in a similar basket by a narrow selection may not be the best idea.</p>

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<p>The reason they let in so few students is simply the fact that composition programs tend to be small, which is reflected in the fact that there is limited demand out there for trained composers, at any level (if there ever was huge demand…). There are a lot more people wanting to go into composition then this demand, hence the ratio you saw, and in top programs they have people (like yourself) coming from all over the world to study there.
And if the program pays tuition plus stipend, that makes it even more competitive (and unless music is different then other grad studies, that is based around the idea that the grad student will be teaching courses, labs, etc in the particular department). </p>

<p>I don’t know much about the nuts and bolts of composition or composition programs, but I think that the term ‘genius’ doesn’t mean anything. Genius could apply to someone who already has written great works that have won awards (and had them played for an audience of maybe 10 people who would listen to it:), it could also be someone who caught the eye of those granting admissions as having the potential to be a genius, I suspect it depends on the program and the professors. In your case, if you have composed, have stuff you can show them in different genres, pieces performed, that could catch the eye as much as someone who won some award, depending on circumstances, at least from the little I have seen in other areas of music.</p>

<p>I think the real answer is in putting together a portfolio, seeing the programs you are interested in and applying,in the end there probably isn’t any other way then taking the chance and going for it and seeing what happens. The one thing I know with music, and I am pretty certain that applies to composition as well, is that what you expect might not be the way things happen, one person can tell you you are a genius composer, that you are sure to get into any program you apply to, and you apply, and get turned down; someone else tells you they think you are not that good, and you apply, and get in.</p>

<p>In terms of paying, there may be outside programs, as others have said,to help pay for getting the degree if a full tuition deal doesn’t comeabout. I know there is an American/Israeli music program, that has been around a long time, that helped/helps Israeli music students to be able to study in the US (I believe Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zucherman both were helped by this program). I don’t remember the name off the top of my head, and they may have gotten hurt in the Madoff investment scandal, but there may be other programs, too, to look into as well. </p>

<p>I wish you luck, wish I could add more, hopefully others know more about that level of study.</p>

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<p>Try to have your best pieces recorded by good musicians, have your scores professionally bound (a copy place can do it) and go ahead and apply to Yale and Curtis (both free tuition) and anywhere else you would like to try.</p>

<p>I agree that the term genius is meaningless in this context. it conjures up images of 7 year-olds sitting at a piano!</p>

<p>You said: " I…write in different styles including tonal, classical, romantic, modern, post-modern, contemporary, experimental, electronic and music for media." Did you write in all these styles for assignments, as part of a learning process?</p>

<p>If you feel you have found your “own voice,” how would you characterize it?</p>

<p>At the undergrad level for composers, I think that admissions people are looking for that individual vision, maybe even originality (thougt with competence of course). You sound like you are well-trained and very competent, but they will also want that “voice.”</p>

<p>Conservatories do give merit money, but it often does not reduce the tuition to a bearable amount. Some colleges have great financial aid based on need alone, as you know, and some have great aid based on both need and merit. I don’t know that much about grad school for music as yet, but it seems that many grad students get stipends for teaching.</p>

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<p>Thanks guys !</p>

<p>compmom - I wrote in these styles for assignments mostly. And music for media - I wrote it for a living :slight_smile: Mostly its music for cellular media and Israeli pop/rock/ethnic songs so its not that serious stuff I can show to the high institutions I think… Maybe it would even cut me a few points in academic circles because of such “unserious” music:)
My “own voice” - I could characterize it as “a beautiful, but dark and mean fairytale” atmosphere :slight_smile: </p>

<p>Violadad - I was told that in composition there’s no big difference where u do your Bmus degree cause u study basic knowledge out there and this degree is only “an introduction to the music”. So almost any “good” teacher can teach u on this level. That’s why I’ve done mine in Israel - its a lot cheaper. On the other hand, MM/DMA are the degrees where u mostly write and study one-on-one with your composition teacher so its very important where u do this and with whom. Of course, the name of the institution means a lot if u’re going to teach by yourself after these degrees completion.
I’ve contacted Curtis and Harrt, lets see whats going on there… :)</p>

<p>By the way, if you are interested, here are a few examples of my works.</p>

<ol>
<li>“Ballerin” - one of my first classical-academimc pieces, performed by my academy’s students. Romantic style :)</li>
</ol>

<p><a href=“http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/4/8/2395569/SergeiStern_concert_Ballerin.mp3[/url]”>http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/4/8/2395569/SergeiStern_concert_Ballerin.mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<ol>
<li>“Amsterdam” - brass quintet which I wrote two years ago after visiting Amsterdam, performed in the same academy by its students. Post-modern I guess…</li>
</ol>

<p><a href=“http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/4/8/2395569/SergeiStern_concert_Amsterdam.mp3[/url]”>http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/4/8/2395569/SergeiStern_concert_Amsterdam.mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<ol>
<li>“Wall-street” - one of my last pieces, computer samples performance… inspired by my financial markets trading experience. </li>
</ol>

<p><a href=“http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/4/8/2395569/SergeiStern_Wallstreet.mp3[/url]”>http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/4/8/2395569/SergeiStern_Wallstreet.mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>And these are my old rock songs and one piece for film. All composed, arranged, recorded and performed by myself, of course.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.myspace.com/sergeystern[/url]”>www.myspace.com/sergeystern</a></p>

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<p>Aside from the financial aspects - which you really won’t know about until after you’re accepted and are or are not offered assistance and fellowships - I think the search for a program is going to be very similar to the one for serious undergrad composers about which we’ve posted quite a bit. Same criteria for picking where to apply. Find the composers with whom you’d like to study - email them directly about yourself and ask specific questions about their program and the opportunities there. There are many good programs out there. Yes, grad school is the time for making connections and getting your music played. And honing your voice. The usual suspects: Yale School of Music, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Univ. of Missouri Kansas City, USC, Indiana, Michigan, Cincinnati, Northwestern, Juilliard, Curtis, New England Conservatory, Mannes, Chicago, NYU, Brandeis, Stanford, Peabody, Rice, Berkeley, UCLA, and on and on. Really you need to narrow it down by the composers you want to work with. Or where composers you admire studied themselves.</p>

<p>If only 3 grad students matriculate to each of those very fine programs above - your odds out of that 150 aren’t that bad! But again, I don’t know about the financial side of things. Nothing to lose by asking the departments themselves.</p>

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<p>Enjoyed your music, all of it. Who sings “I don’t Live”? Some of your music seems to have commercial potential, and that is a compliment.</p>

<p>Are you more interested in classical concert music composition, jazz, rock, film- any preference?</p>

<p>You could also look into Berklee or USC Thornton or NYU. Others would have more suggestions in some of those directions. </p>

<p>Curtis is reputed to be conservative and purist, for lack of a better term.</p>

<p>Your music is interesting. In any case, you will probably need to give some real thought to where to apply, and what direction you want to go in. That is the down side of versatility: choices!</p>

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<p>compmom - thanks a lot ! I sing both songs.</p>

<p>Actually, I’m interested in serious academic classical music. Thats what I want to study.
Other things - like jazz, rock, music for film, I’m doing by myself… I think that kind of music is not something u learn in such institutes.
USC and NYU are in my list.
Berklee is jazz institution, I’m interested in classical music.</p>

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<p>Just wanted to say I listened to some of your pieces and enjoyed them. Good luck with your search.</p>

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<p>Shulamit Ran is at Chicago. She might have advice for you.</p>

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<p>have you attended any summer programs? you might look into SICPP (Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice) at NEC, run by Stephen Drury, which includes composers and each year includes a major new composer on the faculty (this year it was Jonathan Harvey); in 2010, the composer is reported to be Chaya Czernowin, from Harvard (via Israel).</p>

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<p>If heading into classical music (okay, no smart alecks telling me that is only music between 1750 and 1850 or so, Lenny Bernstein pulled that one a long time ago <em>lol</em>), you also might want to think about what kind you are heading towards, is there a style. I am not a composer or particularly close to that style, but from what I am led to understand composition programs tend to have a dominant style, despite claims to the contrary, so when deciding which program/whom to study with you need to look at your own voice/vision I suspect.For example, if you were someone heavily influenced by very modern composers, like stockhausen, you might not do well at a program that is reputed to be very conservative/caught up in ‘classic’ compositional styles.If you are a neo baroque or neo romantic style, if a department is heavily weighted towards serialist music, might not want to head towards that department. Unfortunately, there probably aren’t easy to use guides to this, it takes research to figure out if a)the department’s reputation is in fact the truth and b)whether that reputation, if it is true, fits your needs (and I will add that I have heard a lot of back and forth on music schools, in composition and in musicology both, that deny there is any ‘departmental bias’ and others who say of course there is…I can only say I recently heard premieres done by young composers in a particularly well known grad school of music, and all of them were cut from the same mould in terms of style)</p>

<p>In any event, I think you need to research the programs with an eye towards what you are looking towards, what your style/voice is, then choose a teacher/program that seems a fit and then let the rest of it happen as it seems to do in terms of finances and so forth.</p>

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<p>I think you have talent (your voice is wonderful…I would call it “smoky”), in all your music. Do you have a band, or are you also playing while singing? </p>

<p>It is cool that, with so much commercial potential (and I understand your desire to do that on your own), you are eager to do more “classical” training.</p>

<p>My composer daughter is in an excellent university undergrad program and has a small class with a well-known rock musician. Don’t mean to be coy, but just protecting privacy. Anyway, she admires him very much for doing this classical study when he could be on world tour.</p>

<p>Here in the U.S., the term “new music” is used in a lot of places, to describe “contemporary classical” or “contemporary concert” music. The whole “classical” thing is awkward, because, as someone said, it is supposed to refer to a time period, not a style.</p>

<p>How familiar are you with “new music”? There is so much going on w/it these days, lots of exciting composing going on. I can PM you with a list, but don’t presume that you would need one. You probably know more than I do.</p>

<p>When our daughter was looking into schools, she went to the school websites and read the philosophy of the composition departments, read about the courses, then went to the faculty list and clicked on their names, read their bios, and if possible listened to their music. Our daughter actually ended up ordering CD’s of a few, when she got close to choosing, and also a lot of the professors who are composers have web sites w/samples to listen to.</p>

<p>There is not always a correlation between the teachers’ own music and what they will encourage for you. The best will encourage you on your own path. NEC, as one example, emphasized this “finding your own voice” thing on their website. We went to a concert there and sure enough, every student composer’s piece was very different. Also, the teacher was at the concert and went up to each student afterward, with support.</p>

<p>We have been to some student composer concerts, where we expected wonderful things, but in reality a lot of the pieces sounded very similar. This is a bad sign. I don’t want to post negative things here, but I will say that you would be surprised that this can be frequent. I have also knows young composers who wrote, say, neo-Romantic music, went to a school, and then wrote nothing but very atonal stuff.</p>

<p>I can tell you some about teachers at NEC, Manhattan, Juilliard, Oberlin (oops, no grad students), Tufts or Harvard if you want to PM me. Good teacher/composers from these places, to listen for a varied exposure, might be John Corigliano, Christopher Rouse, Milton Babbit (for serialism) Richard Danielpour, Jennifer Higdon, Julia Wolfe (the Bang on a Can crowd), Michael Gandolfi, Yehudi Wyner, Helmut Lachenmann. (Any faculty left out of this list are not there due to my memory problems.)</p>

<p>“New music” includes a lot of very different music, but John Corigliano, George Crumb, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, August Read Thomas, Elliot Carter might be a start. Just thinking at random here. Maybe you have heard a lot of them already. Or maybe American music is less known to you.</p>

<p>Do you like Shostakovich? Just curious.</p>

<p>Good luck…hope you find a place that gives you what you want to learn. Your music is very worthwhile!</p>

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<p>Listening to 7 Days and the vocals seem Zappa inspired. The track is much simpler than Frank’s stuff but the vocals brought him to mind.</p>

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<p>I loved 7 Days – I listened to it three times :-)</p>

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<p>Thanks a lot guys !</p>

<p>compmom - I don’t have a band now but I had one two years ago and we performed a few times in local pubs.
I’m familiar with “new music” cause in my school (Tel aviv’s university) that was the main and only music we had to compose. And if you wrote something tonal and romantic, u were told that others had already done
this before u, u’re not renewing anything and thats why your music is not interesting.
I don’t agree with that totally, but I think its the right approach to take for an academy, cause as a composer u have to know and understand whats going on now. And u cannot understand contemporary music without
a certain knowledge and openness. During my Bmus studies a new dimension in my music understanding and even life understanding appeared in me and I’m grateful for that to my academy.
Yeah u’re right. I’ve listened to a lots of contemporary music in my academy made by students and also to a music of professors from USA universities. I get an impression from most of them that their main goal is to be new, inventor by all means… but those means are similar to all of them, they forget this. And also because of their main focus on “being new,
being contemporary” they forget to make their music interesting. Bach (one of the greatest) was contemporary in his time - there were lots of composers who wrote in the same style at 17’th-18’th centuries, Bach didn’t renew anything. He just brought this style to a perfection. Thats why he’s the greatest, not because he was inventor.
During all musical history there have been something like 90% bad composers, 9% good
composers and 1% geniuses :slight_smile: The same ratio we can observe in all spheres of life.
Of course I know about Glass, Cage, Reich, Carter. I like Shostakovich, but I like late Prokofiev more :slight_smile:
One of my favourite composers is Ligeti. I think he was one of those geniuses, contemporary one by the way.
And thank u for the list of professors, I’ll listen to all of them !</p>

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<p>Yeah1981, as a listener and consumer of music, I am thrilled to hear what seems to be to be a very balanced approach to the demands of being new at all costs versus being familiar enough in form/sonority/tonality that the audience can actually connect with the music. Pushing boundaries is important. But as you notice, there are different ways of defining “boundary”. Bach showed us just what was available at the boundaries of his music - music which today is too often played without the passion that a man with that many kids MUST have felt… New is important, but so is mastery.</p>

<p>I am very interested in your music, and in your approach to music.</p>